Short Stories and Snow Spirits
by To the Redwoods
Summary: Sometimes dark spirits resurface after centuries of dormancy. Sometimes imagination can grow too big and sometimes people see something they aren't meant to see, upsetting ancient balances and ancient spirits. When the High Spirit Council reawakens, the Guardians rally together to protect a young woman with an imagination that's far too big for her own good.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: So oops this happened because I'm sick of reading the same story where pitch comes back over and over so new spirits abound, soon i promise. heres obligatory introduction chapter. please leave me comments.. um yadda yadda. welcoming myself to this community._

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><p>The first time she saw him was the very first time Poppy built a snowman, or saw snow for that matter. Her mom had moved them to the outer laying area around Lake Tahoe to get away from the bustle of city living. They had been living in San Francisco in a high rise apartment until she had just turned seven and the death of her father had brought them out into the heavily wooded countryside. On their first night in the woods it snowed until a thick quilt of the white fluff covered the ground. She had watched the grey clouds roll in through the trees, and slowly the snow began to fall until it weighed down the branches all around the small cabin.<p>

"Please can I go play in it Mom. Please, please.." Poppy had begged and begged until her mother finally conceded and slipped on her rain boots and her coat.

"Be careful though and don't go far okay? Jack Frost will make sure you're nice and cold out there." Her mother had told her as she zipped Poppy's coat up.

"Who's that?"

Her mom pinched her nose. "He brings the snow, and he'll nip at your nose if you're not wrapped up tight."

With a laugh, the girl had run out into the snowy evening. She kicked at the white powder and threw it into the air so it could fall down on her. She had struggled to roll up the snow into balls and stacked them up on one another. She stood back to admire her half built, lopsided snow man.

"Not bad for a first timer." A voice made her look up to the trees but the branches were empty except for a chilled breeze. "Little bit lopsided there kiddo, but word is you moved from the city. I can work with that."

Poppy ignored the voice as it got a little bit closer. There must have been someone talking about her nearby. She patched up one side and then the other before standing back and setting her hands on her hips. A chilled breeze whipped around her. It pulled at her hair and clothes. She looked up to the sky with a grin as a flurry of snowflakes touched at her face. When she turned back to her snowman, the wind had wound itself around the lumpy surfaces and smoothed them out with a whirlwind of snowflakes. With wonder, she heard an echoing laugh disappear into the sky. A single snowflake hit her nose like a painful nip.

"Jack Frost?" Poppy breathed. "Jack Frost fixed my snowman!" She ran back towards her house. "Mama! Mama! Jack Frost was here!"

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><p>It was a long time after that before she thought about Jack Frost again. Poppy had always been a girl with her head in the clouds. She would rather daydream about fairies and her imaginary friends then pay attention to math class. All through middle school she was ridiculed for her reluctant belief in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause, but it was in her nature to believe in the impossible and nothing her friends told her made her stop thinking about the magic that she was sure existed in the shadows. She had a massive imagination that was always running away from her and there was very little that could ever rein it in. She barely graduated from high school as she was more occupied with creative writing and myths than math and science.<p>

Everything came to a head when Poppy turned 22. She was a creative writing major currently dreaming her way through junior college in the redwoods near Tahoe, where the snow always stuck around too long. Most of the time she was scribbling out ideas in the shade of a big tree, except in the wintertime when she was always sitting wrapped in a blanket on the porch of her mom's cabin reading short stories.

Her friends told her she was too old to still believe the way she did and she only laughed and told them they were jealous. Her mother was getting older, and she was worried one day she would be alone in the small cabin in the woods, but until that day came her mom would support her in every way she could. She was the only family that Poppy had and she spent almost all her time in the study of their cabin in the woods.

"Come inside hon, or Jack Frost will get you." Her mom's tired voice came as she poked her head out the back door.

Poppy had been scribbling on the porch in a beat up old journal she'd had for far too long. Her eyes were glued to the tree line, where she had seen a squirming line of black sand creeping across the snow. The girl stood slowly and squinted into the shadows. "I don't think it's Jack Frost I need to worry about Mom.."

"What did you say? You're mumbling again sweetie. Come on inside, your dinner is getting cold!"

"Everything is getting cold. I'll be right back Mom." She slipped the slippers that were sitting under her wooden bench, before stumbling to her feet. In a rush, Poppy ran into the trees with the blanket wrapped around her slim shoulders.

The bare branches above her rattled against one another with a breeze and a snow flurry carried along with it. Poppy looked up as a blur of sky blue raced through the trees. Her breath puffed out through her nose when she skidded to a stop on a small clearing. There was no other light aside from the huge full moon casting a ghostly pale light over the trees. A thin young man stood, prodding at what appeared to be the black sand she had been following, frozen in a wave against the dirt.

"What was that?" Poppy asked the stranger breathily.

He jumped and slipped on the ice before turning to her. "You snuck up on me. Where did you come from?" He asked more to himself than to her. He had wide blue eyes that looked her over critically and a head of shocking white hair that he shook a few snowflakes out of with his long fingers.

She turned and pointed back through the trees. "My Mom's house is just back that way. I was following the sand-"

The young man turned back over his shoulder with a start. "You're talking to me aren't you?" He seemed to float forward to peer at her carefully through his spidery white eyelashes. "And you saw that sand? And you can see me too? How old are you? Usually only kids can see me."

"Twenty two.." Poppy stole a glance over her shoulder. Coldness wrapped around her shoulders as he leaned in close to her. His skin glistened like ice in the silvery moonlight. "Are you the Spirit of Winter or something? What do you mean see you? You're solid as anyone I've ever seen. Were you uh, flying back there?"

He laughed and set his bare feet down in the snow. "I guess you could say that." He leaned up against his staff. "What's your name? You look vaguely familiar."

"Poppy." She blinked and her breath puffed out of her nose. "And you didn't answer my question. What do you mean only kids can see you?"

"That's a secret." He winked. A look of understanding dawned on his face and he smiled. "You're that kid who built the lumpy snow man, aren't you? That was your first one, wasn't it? Have you gotten any better since then?"

Poppy narrowed her gaze with a small smile. "Jack Frost. You helped me that day, I saw you standing in that clearing. You're Jack Frost."

"That's my name, don't wear it out." He quipped back. Jack turned on his heel with a sparkling grin on his face and made his way back to examine the frozen sand. He squatted down and ran one of his long fingers over the frozen ridges with his staff resting on one shoulder.

She crept forward to look over his slim shoulders, pulling her thick knit blanket tighter around her shoulders. "What is it Jack?"

He looked up. "Nightmare sand."

"Nightmare sand." She tested the title out on her tongue. "Where did it come from?"

Jack opened his mouth when Poppy's mother's voice came from somewhere between the trees. "Looks like someone is looking for you, crazy girl." He stood in a flourish of snow and freezing wind. "Better run along little mousy. Before you freeze to death."

Poppy searched his strange, bright face. "Will you be around? I mean, I have a million questions and it'd be nice to you know.. Have someone to talk to."

Jack laughed. "I'll meet you here tomorrow then Poppy, if that's what you want. I can answer any question you have. That is, only if you promise to be dressed for something other than bed time." He added with a wink, pointing down to her slippers. "I have a few questions of my own anyway."

She hesitated as she backed up a few steps. "You'll actually be here? I refuse to leave unless you promise me."

"Does this look like a face that would ever lie to you?" Jack gave her an innocent smile.

"Okay deal." She held out her hand for him to shake. He hesitated and wrapped his long fingers around hers. It was like an electric jolt through her body when their skin touched and she looked up into his bright eyes. He was smiling, if not with a slightly guarded expression, and she only stuttered out a breath. His icy hand was solid in hers and she searched his face. "You really are real aren't you? Not just my imagination?"

"Real enough anyway." He squeezed her hand gently. "Promise I'll be here tomorrow."

She hesitated before releasing his hand, but did eventually and nodded. With that Poppy ran back to her house. Her mom pulled her inside with a worried look.

"I'm sorry I thought I saw something." She explained quickly as she slipped inside.

Her mom searched her face worriedly. "Was it anything? You're freezing cold sweetheart. Come on and let me make you some hot coco. Tell me what you're thinking about writing next."

"No it was just a weird shadow, some kinda animal or something. Stories? I'm not positive, but I have a few ideas about the snow."


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Dont mind me. just keeping on keeping on_

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><p>Poppy stood in the clearing the next day at the exact same time, wrapped up in almost all the sweaters and scarves she owned. Her dark orange scarf was pulled up over her nose and mouth, to ward off the wind chill in the clearing and although she had a thick wool beanie on over her pixie short hair, her thick hood was pulled up over her ears as well. She shifted back and forth from one boot to the next and stole a glance at her phone. Jack Frost was late. She crossed her arms and let out a long breath. Her gaze turned up to the sky.<p>

"Woah, look at you. Right on time aren't you?" The voice came along with a gust of wind and snowflakes as the snowy young man landed in the branches above her head. He hopped down with another whirlwind of snow and landed lightly on the snowy ground in front of her. "I'm usually not. In fact fashionably late is sorta my thing." He set his staff on the ground next to his bare feet and shook out his hair with his free hand. "And look! You're in a real coat and everything. I am thoroughly impressed with you, crazy girl."

Poppy pulled her scarf down from her mouth and searched his pale face carefully as she crept towards him. She took a few steps around his back, examining his frost bitten hoodie and snowy white hair. He turned, raising one of his eyebrows curiously.

"Yes?" He asked with a quiet laugh.

She cleared her throat before picking up his pale hand in hers. She looked up at his smiling face. "You're still real?"

"Still real." He laughed out loud. "Now, what do you want to know? I have some questions of my own for you. So, how about we play a game?" He took a few long steps around her, like she had done to him only seconds before. He tapped his staff against the ground absent mindedly as he spoke, creating a swirling frost pattern on the frozen dirt. "Twenty questions. Then you can get to know me, and I can get to know you." He bent to look into her eyes with a playful smile on his face as he rounded her shoulders. "How does that sound Poppy?"

She shook his hand, which she still held tightly in hers with a smile. "Deal!"

Several hours later, Poppy knew a little bit more about the snowy spirit. It wasn't enough, she soon found that the more he told her only made her want to know about him, but what he had told her was a solid start. Besides, there was only so much she could think to ask at a time. When it became clear they would be in the cold for a while, she had run back to her house and grabbed a thick blanket to spread out on the frozen ground so they could sit side by side against a frost covered tree. Jack leaned his staff against the bark and criss-crossed his legs close at her side.

"Tell me more Jack." She set her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees.

He grinned. "As you wish."

He was Jack Frost, formally living but currently dead. Usually only kids could see him because he was one of the Guardians of Childhood, and normally only kids believed in legends like him. Along with Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, who he insisted were all as real as he was. He was incredibly intelligent and well spoken, despite the constant edge of sarcasm in the tone of his voice. In return for everything he told her about himself, she told him about her wild imagination. She told him about her creative writing and all her short stories and her stubborn belief in fantasy and magic that had always lead to being bullied in middle school. She told him truths about her dead father who she never spoke to anyone else about, and who she had been immeasurably close to. About moving to Tahoe, about her hopes for the future and anything and everything else that came to mind. Jack always responded with enthusiasm, excitement, and curiosity about her writing and past and imagination.

They met like that every day. On days when she had class she would try and focus on her lectures until she could rush back to the forest and her frost spirit. They would sit with their knees and shoulders bumping together for hours, sometimes until the sun went down and she was shivering and he forced her back inside her heated cabin with a huge grin. He pushed her up through the doorframe until she stumbled inside and made him promise he would meet her again the next day. It became clear incredibly fast that Poppy couldn't imagine life without Jack Frost.

One day before she rushed to meet her snowy companion, Poppy made a trip to the library. She checked out a small pile of books full of legends and spirits with the intention of asking Jack about each of them, but realized how long it had taken and left in a rush. When she finally slipped into the icy clearing, Jack was already waiting for her with an impatient look on his face.

"Hey there you are!" He looked only slightly worried. "I was starting to get worried that you weren't gonna show this time."

Her eyebrows knit together. "No way! I can't imagine life without you Jack!" She cleared her throat awkwardly when his cheeks flushed light pink at the words that had tumbled out of her mouth. "I just made a pit stop at the library." She pulled out a few books about legends she had brought in her backpack.

"That's supposed to be me?" Jack closed one of his eyes and held the illustration critically up to his face. "I'm barely a day over three hundred. This man looks ancient." He narrowed his sparkling gaze. "This is just offensive. Look at his shoes." He curled his lip in disgust. "No shoes ever. Don't these authors know anything?"

"I thought you might like it. My mom used to tell me these stories all the time. It's like fate that we met." Poppy looked down to her hands. "Don't you think? We're almost made for each other."

Jack's crystal eyes met hers and he gave her a smile. "You could say that."

"Did you say you were three hundred just now? You can't really be three hundred. Can you?"

He laughed.

And so they met like that, every day for the next month or so. She would rush out after class or work to meet with Jack and he would always be fashionably late. He always had new stories to tell her and magic tricks. He told her about the world from the sky, the spirits she had never even heard of, and all the fantastic things he had seen. She didn't have nearly as many stories to exchange but she had a head that yearned for anything that left his mouth.

He told her about the past and places she had only dreamt of. He wove her stories of nightmares he and the other Guardians had faced as well as joyous stories of people he'd met all around the world. Months passed and it became normal for her to meet the icy spirit in the clearing and she soon couldn't imagine life without him.


End file.
